


We'll always have Wakanda

by yunhaiiro



Series: The calm before the storms [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Black Panther (2018), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Recovery, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, first encounter in Wakanda, the HUG
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 04:30:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14584998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunhaiiro/pseuds/yunhaiiro
Summary: “Captain. I thought you should be the first to know. Shuri managed. Barnes is out of cryo, and stable. You can come see him whenever you want.”There’s a silence on the other side of the line.“Should I expect your visit in the coming days?”“…yes.”





	We'll always have Wakanda

**Author's Note:**

> I had to, like I assume everyone in the fandom did, to write my own take on the first time they see each other after Civil War. I'm just spilling out my feelings and hoping it makes you feel at least a fragment of the love I have for them and the one they have for each other.
> 
> Thank you as always to [dfotw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dfotw) for, well, _everything_. Also to [marinalj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marinalj/pseuds/marinalj), who has her own take on this prompt and if you can read Spanish you should really go read [_The days of being young and free_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14550237).

“Captain. I thought you should be the first to know. Shuri managed. Barnes is out of cryo, and stable. You can come see him whenever you want.”

There’s a silence on the other side of the line.

“Should I expect your visit in the coming days?”

“…yes.”

 

* * *

 

Steve arrives in a jet that T’Challa graciously provided, alone. At the king’s gentle inquiry, he says Natasha and Sam were safe and in hiding, but they had declined to accompany him in this particular trip. T’Challa doesn’t ask anything else.

T’Challa leads Steve to a room very similar to the one he had seen Bucky in the last time, before he went under. He’s alone inside, looking out the glass walls, surrounded by lit-up displays.

T’Challa nods at Steve and then leaves them both, quietly slinking away.

The first thing Steve notices is Bucky’s hair is now longer than ever and half of it is up in a bun, which makes him chuckle.

Bucky hears him and turns around. He fixes him with a gaze as a smirk grows bigger and bigger across his face.

“What’s so funny, punk?”

Steve also smiles and there’s a second of stillness before he lunges forward and envelops him into a hug. Bucky almost gets knocked off-balance but steadies in time to hook his right hand around Steve’s neck, Steve’s arms around his waist.

“I missed you”, Steve manages to choke out.

“I missed you too”, Bucky answers, in the softest voice possible.

Bucky feels a tear drop down on his neck. He lets out a shuddering sigh.

“I cannot believe you’re gonna make _me_ cry, Rogers.”

Steve only answers with a wet chuckle and buries his face further into Bucky’s hair.

They separate after what feel like ages (even if they don’t really take their hands off each other) and Steve takes a moment to look at Bucky up and down. He’s draped in Wakandan robes, which make it hard to notice that he had lost some weight, but he’s been hugging him long enough to know he has. But what really pops out is the space where his left arm used to be. Steve has seen him like this before, after watching it get blown off in Siberia, but it’s still a unsettling sight he’ll have to get used to.

Bucky notices him staring and shrugs.

“Don’t miss it. I can do everything I need to with one arm.”

“Even the…” Steve gestures at his hair.

Bucky looks bashful.

“The kids at the village did that. They seem very entertained by my hair.”

Steve raises a hand and threads his fingers through it. His gaze shifts to Bucky’s eyes.

“I like it too.” A small smile on his face. He hasn’t wiped away the tear streak on his cheek.

Now Bucky’s the one to lunge forward, joining their lips together. His hand goes right back to Steve’s nape and also tangles on the hair there.

There’s another split second in which neither of them is sure this is actually happening, after every time it seemed inevitable they would end up doing this, and still didn’t.

But then time starts again, planets align, angels cry, and they’re suddenly aware that they are, in fact, indeed, finally, making out.

Steve wants to laugh at the situation, but Bucky isn’t letting him do anything with his mouth that isn’t kissing him back. His kisses grow in urgency until they finally have to part to gasp for air.

“Did they give you a room here?”, Steve rasps out.

“Yes.”

They start kissing again, without actually moving.

A loud “AHEM!” stops them in their tracks and for a second Steve hallucinates that it’s Peggy, once again judging his choice of place and time to act like a horny teenager.

But he looks up over Bucky’s shoulder and sees that it’s actually Princess Shuri.

 _Could’ve been worse_ , he thinks, _could’ve been T’Challa._

Bucky huffs like a child about to get scolded and turns around to face her.

“Hello, Captain. It’s good to see you.”

Steve nods at her. “Likewise, Princess.”

“And you”, Shuri looks at Bucky accusatorially. “I told you. You’re still in recovery. No exerting physical activity. You can’t even run, let alone what you were planning to do. I just let you out of bed because the Captain was coming.”

“I know.”

Shuri lifts an incredulous eyebrow, hands on her hips.

“Then go back to bed. I have other things to work on.” She shoos at him, looking both irritated and incredibly amused at the situation.

Steve sees Bucky’s shoulders go up and down after a heartily sigh.

“Fine! I’ll leave you to it.”

But the second he turns around and starts to leave he gestures for Steve to follow him. Steve stays rooted in place and looks at each of them in succession, unsure of what to do.

Shuri’s now crossed her arms, but still looks very entertained.

“What did I just say?”

“I’m just going to rest,” Bucky replies. “Let me have a nicer nurse than the one I’ve had until now.”

“I’m not your nurse, White Wolf, I’m your saviour.”

“Sure”, Bucky says, already stepping away. He takes Steve’s hand in his.

They don’t get to see Shuri giving Bucky the finger, while also laughing.

As they walk through the palace’s corridors, Steve marvels at how natural it feels to be holding hands.

“White Wolf?”, he asks.

“That’s what she calls me. I’m afraid it’ll catch on.”

“I could get used to it.”

Bucky shakes his head.

“Please don’t. I’d rather you call me by my name.”

“James?”

Bucky lets out an irritated sound.

“You know what I mean. God, you haven’t called me James since we were what, eight?”

“That was a weird week.”

Bucky snorts.

“And what are they calling _you_ these days, Steve? I imagine they trademarked the Captain America.”

Now Steve is the one to chuckle.

“Yeah, I don’t think they like me using that anymore.” A pause. “I don’t think  _I_ like that anymore.”

Bucky takes a quick glance at him, but keeps talking in a light tone.

“What now, then? Captain Wakanda?”

“Kinda done with the Army thing. And the country thing.”

“Well, that makes two of us”, Bucky mutters under his breath.

Steve hears it, but pretends he doesn’t.

“I think I’ll just be a nomad, going around the world. Helping whoever needs it.”

They come to a stop in front of a door. Steve feels like they’ve been walking for ages.

Bucky lets go of his hand to plaster it against the door and Steve has the most ridiculous feeling of loss and the instant reflex of trying to grab it again. He wrestles it down by keeping his own hand at his side, balled into a fist.

A square around Bucky’s hand on the door lights up, then it chimes and opens. Steve catches Bucky’s giddy smile before he steps inside and he follows him.

Steve takes a moment to look around the room. The walls are also glass, like in the lab they had been in before, and he can see the entire landscape of the Wakandan capital from this height. The decoration is completely Wakandan too, and even if the room is fully furnished it doesn’t feel lived in. The only proof that someone has been there at some point is the small pile of books on top of a nightstand. Steve tries to see what the titles are, but he doesn’t recognize the language.

Bucky notices his stare and walks over to the nightstand, picking up one of the books and looking at it with barely concealed fondness, then shows it to Steve. The cover has a vine, with its growth forming the letters.

“They’re Wakandan folk tales and traditions. Children stuff, mostly. I think Shuri finds it very funny that this is as much as I can read in their language.”

“You’re learning Wakandan?” Steve stands next to him and extends a hand. Bucky hands him the book and Steve flips through it. There are a lot of illustrations, all beautiful, some intricate, but also some that could only be described as “haunting”.

“Well, I gotta do _something_ while I’m here. Bedrest gets boring.”

Steve looks at him with the slightest bit of worry.

“Should you be out and about?”

“Please, not you too.”

“Sorry. I just…”

Bucky takes the book back from him, puts it back down on the pile, and pointedly walks away from the bedside to stand in front of the glass wall, hand resting on it above his head.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” He gestures at the city.

Steve joins him at his side once again. He looks at Bucky, who has a glimmer in his eye, and he’s hit with a wave of nostalgia of life more than 70 years prior.

Bucky must be feeling it too.

“This is the future we were promised.”

Steve makes a noncommittal sound and tries for a joke.

“Well. We still don’t have flying cars.”

“Yeah. That might actually be my fault.”

Now what hits Steve is a terrible dread, right in his stomach.

“Bucky…”

Bucky shakes his head, not looking at him.

“I know. We’ve talked about this before.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. But Howard Stark didn’t deserve that”. He pulls away from the wall and looks up, sighing. “None of them did.”

Steve takes one step towards him without noticing, then stops himself. Bucky looks down at him, hand flat at his side. There’s nothing in him to suggest he’s recalling something unbearably painful, he doesn’t look as miserable as he did the last time they had talked about this.

But he still looks sad, and a bit lost, and Steve wants to hug him, so he does.

Bucky doesn’t move for the first seconds, then hugs him back, even tighter than before.

After a while, he says into Steve’s ear.

“Maybe I really should get some rest.”

He sounds tired.

They both amble over to the bed, not wanting to leave each other’s space. Bucky gets his sandals off then lies down on top of the duvet, fully dressed, but letting his hair down and scattering it onto the pillow. He closes his eyes.

Steve looks around the room once more, searching for a chair or armchair. Before he can see one, Bucky clings to his hand like Steve had wanted to do before, while standing outside the door.

Bucky’s looking up at him with just one eye open.

“Will you stay?”

Something melts in Steve.

He closes his eyes and rubs the space between them with his free hand. He opens them again.

“Move over.”

Bucky shuffles to the other side of the bed. Steve sits on the space left, then takes off his boots. He feels his every movement being watched closely. He takes off the jacket, and his jeans, and puts them down on the floor, and stops there.

He also lies down, on his side, now watching Bucky with one eyebrow raised, in case he has a witty comment prepared.

He doesn’t. He already looks very sleepy.

Bucky turns around and shuffles again so his back is flush to Steve’s chest, and grabs his arm and puts it around himself, keeping his own arm on top of his. Their fingers thread together.

“Will you stay?” Bucky asks again, a mutter almost lost into the pillow.

Steve thinks of the work he still has to do, and the injustice in the world, and the people who need help.

Steve stops thinking and feels the warmth of Bucky’s body, his breath evening out, the almost religious silence that has enveloped them.

And he decides that, for once, the world can wait.

“Of course I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope they get to watch a Wakandan sunset.
> 
> Thank you for reading and every appreciation and feedback will be treasured forever.


End file.
